


Two Eyes.

by quigonejinn



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What can you possibly hold onto long enough to love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [th_esaurus](http://th-esaurus.livejournal.com/) posting on DW about the re-release of TPM. 
> 
> FIrst posted to DW on [2/27/2012](http://quigonejinn.dreamwidth.org/188275.html#cutid1).

Padawans follow their masters. Some masters work their entire lives in the halls of power, influencing the paths of the Empire; their Padawans become politicians, careful and measured, skillfully navigating navigating minefields made from words and politics and theology. Some masters work their entire lives in libraries, organizing and translating texts; their Padawans train for memory and the subtleties of languages dead for ten thousand years. 

Some masters spend their entire lives in the traveling diplomatic service. Has a planet requested Jedi ambassadors to mediate a planetary arms dispute? The traveling diplomats go. Has a son of the O'ooth clanleader given birth to a child strong in the Force? The traveling service goes to honor the O'ooth, and bring the child to Corsucant for testing, if the child should prove sufficiently gifted. The lives of Padawans in the diplomatic corps are widened by travel. They see three hundred star systems by the age of sixteen, learn grace in any climate and know thirty-eight ways to accept an invitation and ninety-four to turn one down. 

In other ways, they are made more narrow: when you spend ninety nights out of a hundred traveling, what can you carry with you? Not much more than you can fit in the sleeves of your robe and on your back. Who can you be friends with? The people that you meet, but only for a while. 

What can you possibly hold onto long enough to love? 

...

When Obi-Wan was roughly twenty-one, he and Qui-Gon to a planet in the Sharmel system. They are to act as Jedi ambassadors to the coronation of their child king -- a joyous occasion, and a wonder of astronomy. There were two plantary bodies on odd elliptical orbits. On generations where Shl'm was large in the sky, the uplanders and the plans people theoretically lived separate lives with separate rules, separate nations utterly distinct from each other with only a few traders moving between. On generations when Tsh'a was large in the sky, there was a child king, with one parent from the uplanders and another from the plains, and for a generation, the peoples lived together as one nation. They celebrated by twenty-eight days of feasting, moving from the flat lands, up to the hills, then further, up to the high reaches of the mountains where even the uplanders did live. There were cities built there solely for the celebrations. 

"Sometimes, the child king is a boy," Obi-Wan explained. It was near the end of the festival, and the air was cold and thin. "Sometimes, the child king is a girl. According to legend, it doesn't matter, as long as they bring the hill and the plains together." 

"So I'm given to understand." Qui-Gon said. They stood on a balcony, an honored position overlooking the main square in the mountain city. Their breaths hanging in the air, and the lights in the festival were a little distance below. "It seems an unfortunate way to live. After all this time, I am still not sure how it works. What happens if the other moon comes back while the child-king is still living?" 

The reunions at the time of child-kings were particularly joyous: families that had been separated for thirty years or more together again. Siblings that had not seen each other since childhood, friends re-united who thought they might never see each other while living. 

Music began to float up through the curtains of yellow lanterns. Stands for food and wine and drink had been set around the square, along with a throne. 

"Oh, they've fixed it, by and large," Obi-Wan said. "In old times, they used to kill the child-king and really cut off all contact, but these days, you're allowed to choose whether you want to be a hills-person or a plains-person, and there are electronic communication and trade even when the moon is separating them. Plus, it takes so long for the Other Moon to come into phase, you have plenty of warning to get your affairs in order. I was talking to the Elder Priest about it. An edict of the forty-eighth child-king, and when it was originally issued, it almost caused a civ --" 

Qui-Gon frowned and pointed at a bit of color on Obi-Wan's wrist. It was a bit of ribbon, tied in a fancy knot, with a bead worked into it. It was a festive decoration, and one that had taken at least a little time to tie -- fingers touching Obi-Wan's wrist, holding the bead where the pulse lay, then turning the hand over and over to see if the bead was securely held. It was an intimate process, a symbol of two different peoples coming together and sometimes done for a person who was desired as a friend. 

Sometimes, as a lover, if it was sealed with a kiss or offer to perform another sexual act. "Did you get that from the Elder Priest?" Qui-Gon said, dryly. 

It was only half-lit on the balcony, but Obi-Way colored strongly enough to show on his cheeks. 

Music began to float up through the curtains of yellow lanterns. Some instruments that sounded like a pipe, a lively bunch of string instruments that urged the feet to dance. There was going to be dancing.

"I suppose that is why you were late to dinner." There was another moment of Obi-Wan continuing to be too mortified to really explain, and Qui-Gon tapped Obi-Wan's wrist exactly on the bead then turned to go. They had been Master and Padawan for fifteen years, and when Obi-Wan looked from his wrist to Qui-Gon, heart in his eyes -- 

But Qui-Gon had let go of Obi-Wan's wrist, and had turned, still laughing. "Get your lightsaber, Padawan. We promised the child-king a demonstration down there, and if we came all the way up into these mountains, then we'll give her one. 

The yellow lanterns gleamed; the music played. 

...

The question is: what can you possibly hold onto long enough to love? 

The answer is: what can you possibly hold in your heart? 

...

The room was largely dark. Light came in from a window set in the wall, but the glass was closed and latched against the cold. It was late, deep into the night, though they could still hear the music and dancing. The latest was a song about a woman who had two lovers to match the moon, and each of those lovers had two lovers with two moons -- Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan came stumbling into the room. Obi-Wan put his lightsaber on the desk and, very carefully, put Qui-Gon's next to it. He moved more carefully when he was drunk. 

Qui-Gon, on the other hand, stumbled ahead and sat down, heavily on his bed. Narrow bed. There were twin beds in the room, one for him and one for Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan made sure that their lightsabers were secure, that they definitely were not going to move; in fact, he wedged them between a heavy book and a paperweight, then locked the door again, and after Qui-Gon made a vague attempt to get his boots off and failed, Obi-Wan came down and knelt on the floor and began to undo Qui-Gon's boots. 

"The bead on your wrist," Qui-Gon said, after Obi-Wan had worked for a while in silence. 

Perhaps it was because they were happy enough to have gotten drunk; perhaps it was because the mission was easy and safe. Maybe it was because Obi-Wan did not have to look Qui-Gon in the face. 

"Not all of them are for lovers already had," Obi-Wan said, after a while. He did not look up. 

Obi-Wan worked the left boot off, and began on the second, but Qui-Gon reached down and touched Obi-Wan on the side of his face where the Padawan braid hung, and when took him by the wrist, just above the bead. 

"Some are for lovers wished for. I know." There was more silence, but Obi-Wan had stopped undoing the laces on Qui-Gon's boots. "Will you come onto the bed?" 

Obi-Wan looked up, finally, heart racing and mouth dry, and saw his Master's face lit from the side by two moons. 

...

The question is: as a member of the diplomatic corps, what can you possibly hold onto long enough to love? 

The answer is: what can you possibly hold in your heart? Your master who you loved for twenty-three years, who you shared all the nights of your life with after the age of six, and not just that night in the mountains. 

The question is: as the last living member of your order, who can you still have?

The answer is: The love who you thought had been lost forever on a metal building in Naboo and who came back to you, a generation later, on the high plains of Tatooine.


End file.
